Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

10Mar10

I don’t know how to write about how this makes me feel, because in some ways to me it is the best of them all, in other ways not. I never wanted to be a football hero, or a baseball star, but Syd Barrett was someone I was endlessly fascinated with. How could you not hold in reverence someone, who upon being taken to a therapist against their will, said “how do you know it is me that has the problem?”. There is no doubt that taking a large amount of a hallucinogenic  makes you quite difficult to be around for everyone else, but I know that I have never felt surer of myself than the years when I did. I don’t know how that is supposed to make me feel, but like everything I guess there is a balance to it all, you can’t go around on chemicals all the time, but you can’t forget the permanently altered bits of yourself that are around after the fact either. And despite everything I try, you sure as hell can’t hide them.

Anyway Shine On You Crazy Diamond is on here, and I love it more than I can say. Welcome to the Machine is truth no matter how many people say “oh yeah go smoke another joint” when someone else mentions it meaning they fall into the tragic category of someone who has become one or the even worse person who always was. I’m not saying I am any better. And this is all side 1. On side 2, Wish You Were Here has made me cry for 15 years, and there is Have A Cigar. And that doesn’t even start to describe the cover. Or the inset. But please, if you haven’t, get a record player and a copy of this and listen to it. It’s like a two-bit philosophy teacher who I will forever respect and love told me, “Take what you like and to hell with the rest.”

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